If you're going to make a contract, honour it

THE Collins Concise Dictionary defines a contract as "a formal agreement between two or more parties".

But those who follow the NRL understand fully that a contract, in a sport that is now a business and purports to be totally professional, is generally not worth the paper on which it is written.

We could fill a column on this page listing the contracts broken in recent years, often - admittedly, and sadly - with the sanction of both parties. But even when the parties agree to a settlement, that doesn't detract from the fact a contract should be broken only under extenuating circumstances.

Apparently he has had second thoughts about moving to the Gold Coast for next season and the two years beyond.

While this cold-feet situation is not new, the suggested reason is one not trotted out previously - not that I can recall, anyway.

Peachey and his partner are planning to have a second child.

Yep, that is apparently at the crux of this veiled threat to break a three-year contract - worth a reported $1.5 million - which was inked before a ball was kicked in season 2018.

Ostensibly what Peachey, through manager Sam Ayoub, is telling the Titans is that he and his parner may become homesick. The reasoning: partners of other players who have moved north to the sand and the surf have found it difficult being away from their family support.

I concede I'm a dinosaur and from another era to those of Gen Y, but can these people be fair dinkum, and do they expect others to treat them seriously?

Peachey has played 112 NRL games and is a Blues Origin rep.

He left his hometown of Wellington in country NSW to move to Cronulla before graduating from high school in 2009. Now, at 27 years of age, he's fearful of home sicknesses?

Okay, so maybe it's his partner who is actually the one with cold feet. After all, moving away from family and friends is never easy. But I suggest a damn lot of airfares can be purchased from what the taxman leaves from a $500K annual salary.

Perhaps Tyrone's partner should have taken a leaf from the book of Samantha Lynch, the spouse of Johnathan Thurston. When JT returned from Sydney in 2013 to inform his then pregnant wife-to-be he was heading to the Panthers, she told him he would be going on his own.

Ironically, JT is also managed by Sam Ayoub, who back then had the presence of mind to stall on the legalities of a contract, believing his client might have second thoughts. The issue was quickly settled, without fanfare, and JT stayed.

But Peachey has had six months to mull over his Titans deal before raising this recent conundrum, so the question needs to be asked - why now?

Surely, he isn't just bluffing, and merely fishing for a financial sweetener?